Many agricultural tractors have two primary means of hitching to implements. First, there is a fixed drawbar, which is employed when the implement is simply being towed. Second, there are spaced-apart, hydraulically operated lift arms, which are employed when using an implement such as a plow or scraper which needs to be raised and lowered. In addition, it may be necessary to make a further connection between the tractor and the towed implement if a power take-off (“PTO”) is used to drive the implement in some fashion.
The fixed drawbar suffers certain shortcomings when used to tow implements. So as not to interfere with implements coupled to the lift arms, the drawbar is of necessity rather short, such that the pivot point is well forward of the towed implement. However, so that the towed implement can more accurately follow the track of the towing vehicle, it is often desirable to move the pivot point rearward to a location near the front of the towed implement. Efforts have been made to address this problem using so-called “tracking hitch” designs. However, known tracking hitch designs employ the tractor lift arms to carry the load of the front of the agricultural implement and require stabilizer chains linked to the lift pins and to the top link point of the tractor. These designs are tedious and time-consuming to install. In addition, they lack any means of restraining the front of the towed implement from rising in the event of a load shift resulting in negative tongue weight.